ScotMesh RNS Network
Running your own transport node
From the ScotMesh wiki
Everything in Connecting to ScotMesh makes you a client: you use the network, and nothing goes through you. A transport node also carries other people's traffic and tells the network which paths it knows. That is how the network stops depending on any one machine, including ours. This page is for anyone who wants to run one. There are two ways: a ready-made board, or Reticulum on a computer.
What it commits you to
• Something that stays on, with a steady connection: a board on a windowsill, a Raspberry Pi, a small VPS, or a computer that is on anyway. Reticulum itself is light.
• Being reachable, so that others can connect to you: a radio, a port open to the internet, or an I2P address if you cannot open one.
• Announcing often enough to be found.
What it does not commit you to:
• Seeing anyone's traffic. Everything through you is encrypted end to end and carries no sender address. You relay ciphertext.
• Any legal responsibility for content, for the same reason: there is nothing you could read, filter or hand over.
• Much bandwidth. Reticulum traffic is measured in kilobytes.
Out of the box: a board that is the node
The simplest transport node is a LoRa board running the ScotMesh firmware. It has its own identity, relays for everyone within radio range, serves its own status page, and can be looked after from anywhere on the mesh. No computer is attached, and a solar version runs on a hill.
1. Buy a supported board; the SenseCAP Solar Node P1 is the one we use for solar sites, and a Heltec V3 or XIAO ESP32S3 is fine on a windowsill.
2. Open rnode.scotmesh.net in Chrome or Edge, choose Standalone node, and follow the steps: it flashes the board, picks the ScotMesh radio profile, names the node, sets its role to Fixed relay and makes you its admin.
3. Put it somewhere high with its antenna clear. Within range of a ScotMesh gateway it joins the network by itself; out of range it relays for whoever is around it, and joins up when a gateway or another relay comes within reach.
That is a transport node on LoRa only. To join it to the internet side of the network as well, either put it within range of a gateway, or run the computer version below with the board attached to it as an RNode.
Full installation: Reticulum on a computer
1. Turn transport on
In ~/.reticulum/config, in the [reticulum] section at the top:
[reticulum]
enable_transport = Yes
That is the whole switch. Restart rnsd and it starts forwarding. (MeshChatX has the same switch on its settings page, but a phone or laptop that sleeps makes a poor transport node; this route is for a machine that stays on.)
2. Make yourself reachable
Keep your existing TCPClientInterface to ScotMesh (that is your link outward), and add a way in for others.
If you can open a port on your router or VPS firewall:
[[Public entry]]
type = TCPServerInterface
enabled = yes
listen_ip = 0.0.0.0
listen_port = 4242
Forward TCP port 4242 to the machine if it is behind a home router.
If you cannot (CGNAT, no control of the router), offer an I2P entry point instead. With i2pd installed (Access over I2P shows how):
[[I2P entry]]
type = I2PInterface
enabled = yes
With no peers line the interface listens. rnstatus shows the .b32.i2p address it was given; that is what you tell people.
A radio makes it a LoRa gateway as well: add an RNode interface with the ScotMesh profile, and LoRa users near you reach the whole network through it.
3. Announce often enough
Reticulum's default announce interval for a node's own destinations is six hours. In practice that means a client that connects between announces never learns you exist, and node maps never show you. Anything you run on the node (a Nomad Network node, a propagation node) has its own announce setting; set them to 30 to 60 minutes. For a Nomad Network node that is announce_interval = 60 under [node] in ~/.nomadnetwork/config; see Nomad Network.
4. Run it as a service
rnsd only relays while it is running. On Linux, install it as a systemd service so it starts at boot and restarts if it falls over; Connecting to ScotMesh has a unit file to copy.
5. Check it
• rnstatus: your interfaces, each Up, with traffic climbing.
• rnstatus -a: the paths your node knows. A transport node accumulates hundreds within a day.
• From another machine, rnpath -t followed by a destination that is only reachable through you should report a path.
6. Tell us
Post your hostname and port, or I2P address, on the ScotMesh Discord (discord.gg/ytxfyuDmSt). We will add a connection from our side, so the link between us survives either node restarting, and add you to Who we peer with.
Two things to avoid
• Do not block fast-flapping peers on a public listener unless you know why you want it: the default setting on BackboneInterface locks out any client that reconnects five times in twenty seconds for twelve hours, which happens to every client whenever your node restarts. Known bugs and workarounds has the detail. A plain TCPServerInterface does not have this problem.
• Do not run two transport nodes on the same LAN unless they are meant to peer. The AutoInterface will find each other and you get loops of announces. One transport node per household is plenty; the others can be clients of it.
Going further
• Host pages: Nomad Network.
• Hold messages for others: Propagation node.
• Site a radio properly: Antennas and siting.
This is a copy of wiki.scotmesh.net/wiki/Running_your_own_transport_node, last edited 2026-09-11. To change it, edit the page on the web wiki; this copy follows within 10 minutes.